I am considering buying a launcher to help with taking down vehicles because I am sick of dying to rocket pods and tank fire. I want to be decently focused at anti-vehicle and I don't mind dishing out SC to get a new launcher. Any recommendations?
Get the Faction specific rl that locks onto ground vehicles. Do not get the faction specific RL that locks on Air. It is worse than useless. You could get the NS Annilator, however then you can't dry fire it vs. infantry, and I still do that a lot. Seeing as HA vs. Air is totally broken atm, its pretty clear that the antivehicle lockon rl is the best pick if you want to deter tanks.
Don't buy any of the launchers. Seriously. The Decimator's damage increase is ineffective, there's a slow and annoying animation that features your character putting his arm in front of your vision, and there's one fewer rocket. The G2A launcher is useless, period. You may get hits once in a while, if the moon is out and the stars are aligned and the server feels like being nice and the pilot hasn't popped flares or ran away. You will almost never get kills. Didn't buy the G2G, but I don't need it and I've heard of people having problems with it. Best way to get tanks is to get behind them and unload dumbfire at them anyway. Pull the default faction launcher and learn how to kill ESFs with it. You'd be surprised how many of them don't take you seriously, and how many just hover.
I like the decimator. It's easier than the rest to shoot with due to lowest dumb fire arch and fastest launch speed despite the lack of ammo. Apparently the reload speed is supposed to be faster than the default but personally it feels either slower or about the same.
I will echo this guy, the G2G launcher is damn usefull if for no other reason as it has a scope instead of iron sights. The iron sights of the default, at least for me, make it very dificult to range find the arch of the rocket, as the launcher itself will block your sight of were the rocket lands at longer ranges. Be aware that you can lock on to targets from ranges farther than you can actualy hit them though, if the target is more than about 320 meters away (the lock on tells you range to the locked on target) then the missile will not do damage when it hits, which is kinda weird to be honest. It deals a bit less damage (1500 compared to the defaults 1700) but it still only takes 2 in the tailpipe to drop a tank, so you can dumbfire a rear shot without issue.
I use the G2A launcher.. dumbfire at ground vehicles and still do nice damage lock on to air and either scare them away or get a hit every now and then.. I have the annihilator as well,but it really hurts not having a dumbfire at times..when you want to jump out of a door to fire at a tank,you have to wait 5 seconds to lock on...by then youre dead.
Aww man the lock ons take 5 seconds? Maybe I should just throw all of these in trials and test em out. I would like to be able to lock onto air as nothing pisses me off more than rocket pods in this game other than the lack of AMD support. I was hoping the annihilator would be a worthy bet even with its lower damage to get assist kills and scare off gorund/air. Do any of the rocket launchers have lower lock times?
I use the default + the new one that locks on to everything, Decimator or anhilator? forgot which one it was. It works ok for me, the lock scares the noob pilots away and you assist kill here and there + you hit Tanks that are far far away, the ones you can never hit with the dumbfire launcher, etc. For tanks that are close, using the default launcher of course, if I can make the switch fast.
I'm currently in the same situation as you and want something I can use when my DB Max is on cooldown. I just trialed the NS Annihilator and honestly it's pretty decent. But as Brickwalker said if a tank gets the jump on you having to wait 5sec to shoot is a bit of a pain (i suggest the duck & cover tactic ) But anyways I actually liked using it and found it about as effective as a DB Max with the added bonus of also being able to hurt tanks and shoot infantry with you normal weapon, and it's not on a cooldown As a side note: Do not spend SC on an AA weapon and expect to rake in XP/Certs cause atm going AA is probably the worst way to do so.
Devastator. I don\t even equip the rest anymore.. I got them but their useless in comparison to deva.
Im not sure if its EXACTLY 5secs,Im sure its close to 5 secs if it isnt.. All lock on times seem the same length with every launcher. Its a matter of not being able to have it all in one package.Thats why I just use the G2A launcher,at least i can dumbfire at ground vehicles and still have the scare/threat lock on when it comes to air.
I would still get it as the saw owns pretty much everything anyway. Also the missile lock on rocks for both air and tanks. Air its more of a scare tactic and tanks it destroys.
Just for reference Decimator: 2000 damage dumbfire rocket, slowest projectile Stock: 1700 damage dumfire rocket G2G &G2A: 1500 damage rockets that can lock on to ground or air respectively. can be dumbfired in which case its identical to the stock weapon but with lower damage. Can lock on to targets that are to far away to hurt Anilator: 1300 damage rocket that must be locked on to fire, but has faster rocket speed and can lock on to both air and ground targets.
They greatly increased the bullet drop on the G2G and G2A lock on launcher's dumb fire projectile to the point where I have to aimr up and over to hit a sunderer 50m away.
The Annihilator has less damage, but it's the only launcher that still has decent velocity. I can still hit targets with it, unlike the ridiculously nerfed speed of the G2G and G2A. That said, Annihilator has less damage, but I have weird miss issues with the G2G where it'll just not hit targets if they are in the open. The slow missile means a vehicle has the chance to dodge behind cover as well. And obviously with G2A it's even worse. Slow projectile + fast jets=failure
I use the G2A in my primary loadout and the default launcher in a CQC/Biodome loadout. Right now the G2A launchers are disappointing and I'd recommend against picking them up at full price. The recently announced end of the month patch mentioned the launcher problem specifically, so I'd wait for a sale in the mean time.
I'd wait until the patch. I have G2G and G2A, the G2A is pretty bad right now. The G2G is actually pretty good, but you do have to know the distance on it due to it locking on at beyond range. If you have the height and an engineer, you can own a piece of real estate vs armor (works really well on Esamir and parts of Indar). All said, I do miss using my dumbfire launcher at times; as Lucidius134 mentioned, the free fire fall off of the lock on missiles is horrible (twice as much as the stock).
I'd went with the Annihilator as my one "I bought this launcher" being it was the most versatile. I run a load out with the Annihilator and two levels of the Munitions Pouch + a LMG. It's my tank busting set up being it's great for being on a hill, pushing forward on foot with a squad and laying down a lot of fire. Being able to lock on to air is a nice option being many times just locking on to them will have them bug out and leave. If they are already hurt, you can get a few kills too.. Yes it does less damage but if you are with a larger platoon a lot of other players are going to have lock on missiles too, so you will be engaging tanks at longer range and a guarantee hit for less damage is still better then a miss.You're not going to be facing down a zerg of tanks and getting clean back shots anyways. So go for some lock on... then I run another load out with the default launcher, a shotgun, certs into health and couple of health kits. I can't kill at any sort of range with it but it's a real pain for the other team to dig me out of a control point.. but none of the launcher make the HA into a pure tank death machine like what you could do in say BF2142 with the Pilum.
+1 Using the same loadout. the annihilator may not hurt as mutch as the other launchers but it always hits =)
